Can a Simple, Cost-Effective Webinar Revamp Your Marketing Plans

Maybe that’s not the right question to ask. Maybe the question should be, “Why wouldn’t your marketing strategy need a shakeup?”

No matter how well you’re doing in your efforts to reach your target audiences and turn curious strangers into committed customers, you could almost certainly be doing things better. That’s not a knock on your business or marketing acumen, of course. Most entrepreneurs are fans of continuous improvement, and for good reason: if you’re not improving, you’re standing still, and if you’re standing still, others are surely getting ahead.

If you’re not already planning and executing free webinars to educate your target audiences and generate leads for your sales team, you should start. Here’s why traditional marketing tactics often fall short when not paired with online webinars, and what you can do to fix that fast.

Traditional Marketing Tactics & Their Downsides

No one’s questioning the value of traditional marketing tactics, just their effectiveness when used in isolation. Every major type of marketing has some drawback that can be mitigated by the judicious use of free training webinars. For instance, traditional TV advertising is expensive and inaccurate. Many types of digital advertising have the opposite problem — they’re too narrowly tailored. Organic digital marketing is rife with pitfalls. And old-school tactics, like outdoor advertising and broadcasting, only go so far in a dynamic, rapidly changing competitive landscape.

Why Webinars Are Different

Free online webinars aren’t cure-alls, of course. They’re simply one aspect of a diversified marketing strategy. But they’re a powerful aspect, to be sure.

Webinars pack unusual potency into tight, cost-effective packages. For instance, this mortgage company’s training seminar distills many of the company’s core marketing themes, which collectively add up to differentiate the firm from its peers in a very crowded mortgage lending market. There’s absolutely no reason your company’s free online training seminar — or a whole series of them — can’t do the same.

In an ROI-driven business landscape, webinars are also quite cost-effective. It’s easier to eat the cost of a marketing initiative when that initiative is virtually guaranteed to pay for itself (and then some) via direct sales, lead generation or increased exposure.

Make Your Training Program a Thing of Beauty

One more time, for clarity’s sake: by itself, a free training webinar won’t salvage a mediocre marketing operation. To be truly effective, your webinars need to combine power and elegance in one shiny, irresistible package.

The best examples usually have some combination of:

Clear thesis: A clear “why,” such that the prospect is easily able to answer the question, “Why is this company putting on this webinar and what’s in it for me?”

No information overload: Meat is great, but too much can give you a stomachache. The best webinars deliver crucial information in manageable chunks, leaving plenty of time for viewers to digest in between.

Humor: Humor is a great information digestive, as long as it’s audience-appropriate and doesn’t overwhelm the message.

Visuals: No one wants to stare at an employee droning on in front of a whiteboard; that’s what real meetings are for. Go the extra mile and incorporate visuals into your webinars.

An offer or two: Webinars shouldn’t give the hard sell, but they also shouldn’t leave viewers confused about what to do next. Make it clear that you’d like your prospects to take action on an offer you’ve extended during the webinar, preferably at or near the end.